


Lingering

by claudia603



Category: Lord of the Rings (2001 2002 2003)
Genre: Angst, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-11-14
Updated: 2010-11-14
Packaged: 2017-10-13 04:58:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 557
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/133204
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/claudia603/pseuds/claudia603
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Letting go is difficult when ghosts haunt.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lingering

He still lingers.

Too often, Sam wakes in the middle of the night after one of those repeating dreams he’s been having about Frodo that twists his heart in two. In those dreams, he always discovers his Frodo never left at all but is living in a secret room in Bag End. Rosie, all softness and warm curls, shifts in his arms, but she does not wake. Sam stares into the dark, blinking back tears. The middle of the night is always the hardest, when his heart is naked to the cruel stillness. If he listens hard enough, he is nearly sure he can hear the scrape of quill on paper coming from the study, and he thinks he catches the pungent whiff of the ink his Frodo used so much of in those last days.

Sometimes while fetching bread and meat for Rosie at a crowded market full of bustle and babble, he catches from afar a burst of lyrical laughter, just like his laughter – the way it sounded before his eyes dulled like a lake under a gray winter sky. On these days, Sam trudges home, not bothering to hide the tears that run down his cheeks. Once home, he opens that wooden chest and buries his face in Frodo’s old shirts, breathing in deeply, capturing as much as he can through choking sobs. The scent fades with each passing day and Sam knows that soon all that will be left is musty fabric.

But the worst is the dull, aching restlessness that fills him every day -- that thin, stretched hope that one day he will be trimming the hedges, shearing the grass, or planting the vegetables. He will look up to see Frodo striding down the road, eyes bright and eager, like in the old days. Especially right around twilight, the shadows do funny things to Sam’s eyes and a few times he’s thought he’s caught glimpse of a gray cloak that shimmers and then fades like fallen stardust.

I’m healed, Sam. I’ve come home at last.

It is this ghost that will never set him free, long after Frodo’s scent fades from his clothing and the dreams diminish.

“We should sell Bag End and be done with it,” he says one morning after breakfast.

“Nonsense,” Rosie says, slapping him with a dishcloth. Elanor coos in her playpen, shaking a rattle and checking to see that “Da” has taken notice. She is the most beautiful hobbit lass Sam’s ever seen, like a sunflower amongst dandelions. “What would Mr. Frodo think of that?”

“He’d not like it one bit.” Sam shakes his head. He could never leave Bag End, not really.

Rosie suddenly becomes sober, and she slips her arm around Sam’s waist, squeezing him. “He’s much better where he is now, you know.”

“That don’t stop me from missing him.”

“I know.”

Sam and Rosie moved toward Elanor, and Sam lifted the baby, clutching her to his heart. While he held her, with Rosie smiling at them both, he felt whole again, for that moment. He kissed her golden curls.

“No sir,” he whispered in her delicate ear. “I made a promise. I’ll not be torn in two.”

Elanor laughed and pulled at his hair, and now Sam only caught the scent of clean baby and from the study, there was no sound.

END


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